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There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That’s perfectly all right; they’re the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.— Carl Sagan

Month: February 2011

My previous mountain bike (MTB) was a Stumpjumper Comp 2009 which was also the MTB I was riding when assaulted in Sarratt. I’ve now switched over to a custom build of a Santa Cruz Blur XC Carbon. I pretty much went for the gloss-red frame and XTR M980 (10 speed), but there have been a few tweaks from the standard options that Santa Cruz offer.

Sweet!

You may have noticed a cable going up the seat-post…yup, that’s a droppable post, a RockShox Reverb. The full specs are listed below.

Note that the tyres shown are the Continental “Rubber Queen” 2.2 UST (with the useful Black Chili compound). I’ve ridden the non-UST folding version of this tyre but made tubeless using Stan’s Notubes conversion kit on my Stumpjumper’s DTSwiss X420SL rims. Great for winter riding and burly conditions these Rubber Queens, but with winter now receding I think I’ll be switching over to the Continental “X-King” 2.2 Race Sport (RS) tubeless-ready tyres (also with Black Chili). I’ve not ridden any X-Kings yet but these 2.2 RS models have a claimed weight of 460 g so I’m really looking forward to taking-off like a rocket when paired to the Blur XC Carbon. I hope my legs do them justice.

The bike, as spec’ed, weighs 25.3 pounds (11.48 kg); with the X-Kings the weight should drop to 23.8 pounds (10.8 kg). Don’t forget that the 1.5 pounds of reduction, although small, will be in the rotational areas so should make a huge difference to the responsiveness of the bike.

Of particular interest to me are Coyne’s and MacDonald’s concerns over the direction that NCSE seems to be taking. NCSE’s goal are to promote evolution but they’re trying not to offend the religious in the process. I can see NCSE’s point of view as that may be the only way that they can get the message through. Conversely, such an “accommodationist” approach may give a mixed message and falsely colour the insights that evolution behooves us to face. I agree with Coyne and MacDonald and, although I recognise and sympathise with NCSE’s approach, I think that NCSE may cause more harm in the long run. But that’s just my view.

This is just hilarious! Thomas Jackson’s article is one of the most idiotic things I’ve seen in a mainstream newspaper. He does seem to have a Dawkins obsession too and is, perhaps, a bit too deep in his delusions and conceit. Anyway, the article was a good laugh!

Powerful stuff and is similar to what I intended to write here in a future blog but it would not have been as coherently or forcefully written as Christina’s article. I think I was going to concentrate on why the religious feel that they are “offended”.

The religious follow dogmatic attitudes and, with their closed minds, should feel secure in their cosy world of make-belief. But along come atheists making their voices heard and the religious are now shrill with rage. It’s almost as if the religious are scared that they’re about to be found out, that they were wrong. No one likes to admit that they’re wrong. And perhaps deep down the religious know that they’re wrong and get angry at someone who can demonstrate that. I posted something similar at http://www.metalvortex.com/blog/2010/05/30/397.html“Religion’s special privileges”.

DC’s Improbable Science has an article about the strange decisions made by the Science Museum for an exhibit on medicine. Unfortunately it seems that the Science Museum has ended-up promoting anti-science. Coupled with their PR statements it seems that the Science Museum doesn’t actually know what Science is.

I hate to use a Carl Sagan quote against the Science Museum but I’m left with no choice:

Science has beauty, power, and majesty that can provide spiritual as well as practical fulfillment. But superstition and pseudoscience keep getting in the way providing easy answers, casually pressing our awe buttons, and cheapening the experience.

According to the Times of India, the Bombay High Court has, in dismissing a case against astrology, been swayed by the arguments that astrology is science. At first I thought that this was a joke. But I suppose the joke is on the court and on India. This is what happens when people do not exercise critical thinking and fall into the trap of superstitions, pseudo science and other baloney.

I really do wonder if we give too much respect to “not offend”. If we were a bit more direct in calling bullshit “bullshit” then perhaps we wouldn’t have so much of it around.

I think that there’s something immoral here, especially in the code’s advice to reference the Cuban Leptospirosis study despite the fact that the study has been shown to be worthless from a scientific perspective; I would call this fraud.

BBC Newsnight article on the role of the UK government/military in promoting the scam bomb detectors. If the claims are true, I have no qualms in stating that those involved in promoting these devices are morally decrepit, incompetent and evil.